Many meditators are squeezing gravel to get sesame oil. Then they realize that this doesn’t work, so they stop squeezing the gravel — and that’s where they stop. They celebrate how great it is to stop squeezing gravel, thinking that that’s the secret to good practice. Well, it’s an important step, but the path actually consists of finding sesame seeds and squeezing them. It may take some effort, b…

Notice how things affect your mind. If you’ve just come from your work or from your home, notice what it does to your mind. Don’t criticize it. We’re not here to blame or to think that there’s something wrong with our profession if our mind isn’t tranquil and pure and serene when we come here. But notice the business of life: having to talk to people, having to answer telephones, having to type or…

You have to find someone you resonate with. I’d been in other places and nothing had really clicked. I didn’t have a fixed idea of having a teacher either; I had a strong sense of independence. But with Luang Por I felt a very strong gut reaction. Something worked for me with him. The training at Wat Pah Pong was one of putting you in situations where you could reflect on your reactions, objection…

Please reflect: is anger a good thing? How long have we been holding on to our aversions? Aren’t we fed up with negativity? Does the burning rage inside make you happy? Don’t you want to purify your mind of it? Don’t you want to live happily? Or would you rather hold on to it and lead a miserable life? If you want your life to move in a positive direction, then inwardly reflect and look at the con…

The Vinaya lays down many detailed rules concerning our behaviour towards the material world. In the forest tradition we’re taught that the second expulsion offence can be incurred by theft of even the smallest object, something the value of one baht (about three US cents). In the formal announcements in the ordination ceremony, the preceptor teaches the new monk to take nothing whatsoever that do…

Faith is an essential part of our practice, and it’s not something that magically appears on its own. Rather, the arising of faith takes effort. We need to direct our attention toward it to frequently reflect on the arising of faith as a real possibility for us. As Westerners, most of us are not on familiar ground when we reflect on faith. But it is an important quality for balancing the different…

Buddhist cultivation covers more than what we would understand through reading books or even through meditation. For instance, although solitary meditation is what we see in the discourses, one of the main features in the Vinaya and of the Buddhist life is the practice of community. You can recognize this especially when there is a big gathering such as today’s alms-giving ceremony, the Kathina. T…

Before the monastery was established, I can remember Ajahn Amaro telling me that there was a Thai monk in Fremont, Ajahn Maha Prasert, who was keen to see a forest monastery succeed in the Bay Area. Since the founding of the monastery, Ajahn Maha Prasert’s support has been unfailing. Generally in Thailand at the beginning of the Rains Retreat or a bit earlier than that, most of the monks in monast…

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there’s anything lying behind them. This mode is called emptiness because it’s empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories…

You asked why it was that you cannot explain Dhamma to other people. That ability is probably a matter of innate tendencies (most likely based on kamma), and I doubt whether you can do much about it. We read that Acharn Mun was superb at giving talks and explanations of Dhamma, but Acharn Sao (his teacher) would speak only a couple of sentences and go silent; and this despite the fact that he was…